TORONTO – The ability to snuff out rallies in the middle innings, before the high-stakes moments of leverage arrive, can sometimes be as pivotal as the outs recorded in actual close and late situations.
Take, for example, the Toronto Blue Jays’ 5-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday afternoon, giving them three of four against their divisional rival and seven wins in the past eight outings.
While the score doesn’t suggest a white-knuckle finish, it’s the relief work provided by Patrick Murphy and Tim Mayza in the sixth and seventh frames that’s primarily responsible for that.
Murphy took over from starter Ross Stripling with none out and runners on the corners in the sixth and quickly escaped the jam with the 5-2 lead intact. Back out for the seventh, Murphy walked a pair and left the bases loaded with two out for Mayza, who induced a weak comebacker from pinch-hitter Trey Mancini to keep the Orioles under wraps.
That was instrumental in helping the Blue Jays bridge the gap to closer Jordan Romano for his usual fine work in the ninth inning, setting up Anthony Castro to cover the eighth with margin for error. The right-hander, pitching in a role recently reserved for Tyler Chatwood, struck out the side in his frame, making what could easily have become a hairy finish a much more comfortable one.
“Like I always said, if our bullpen regroups and does the job like it did today, we're going to win games,” said manager Charlie Montoyo. “We're going to hit. We're playing great defence. Our starters are doing a great job. That's the piece we're kind of missing. But today was a great example. They did a great job. If they can bounce back, we're going to compete and we're going to be good.”
Underlining that point is what happened Friday night, when the Blue Jays blew a 5-1 lead with five outs to go in what finished as a 6-5 loss in 10 innings. They had a win probability of 98 per cent through seven innings but came up empty in that one, and bullpen issues are a key reason that, with a run differential of plus-65, they’re four games off their expected record of 44-32.
Stranding five inherited runners is notable, given that the Blue Jays relievers have allowed 33 per cent of inherited runners to score this season, a number that’s 13th in the majors and just a tick below the average of 35 per cent.
Murphy stranded the first two runners he inherited this season while Mayza, who slapped his glove in an emotional outburst after escaping the inning, is now at 22 of 30.
“I love it,” said Stripling. “I was fired up for Murphy. To come in first and third, nobody out and to put up a zero there is awesome for him. We're obviously always looking for arms to step up in big situations, leverage situations, and that was a good sign for him. I'm sure that earned him another shot at one coming up. Then Mayza, just getting fired up there, we love seeing that out of Tim … bases loaded, throwing 98 m.p.h., gets out of it and we're still up three going into the last two innings there, it keeps the momentum on our side. That's awesome.”
In the absence of a lockdown bullpen or a blowout from the offence, success in those key moments is one way to limit damage. Montoyo reiterated that the Blue Jays are right now “seeing who can do it and who cannot,” and the prerequisite is a mentality of “being aggressive and going after whoever you're facing.”
Murphy delivered just that in the sixth, and then needed the assist from Mayza when he came back out a bit more scattered in the seventh.
“Strip pitched his ass off and he did well and to come in and get out of his inning for him and keep those guys stranded was big for the team,” said Murphy. “I wanted to get ahead and try and get a ground ball, use my fastball to try and get a ground ball, get two outs. I got ahead of (Domingo Leyba) and I was able to put him away. After that, I still wanted to get the ground ball with only one out, first and third and I ended up making a pitch (to Maikel Franco) and they turned the double-play.”
Stripling continued his recent roll by allowing two runs in five innings of work, despite not feeling sharp with his secondary pitches and struggling with the wind’s impact on his curveball. He continued to pound his fastball but generated only four whiffs in this outing, one on the heater that was fouled off 18 times.
The Orioles have been pesky like that, and while perhaps teams may be recognizing the adjustments Stripling has made in recent weeks to his delivery and repertoire, he got only eight combined whiffs, called strikes and foul balls on 38 curveballs, sliders and changeups. In his previous three outings, he had 12 whiffs against the Red Sox, 18 versus the Yankees and eight against the Marlins.
“There were definitely some long at bats and foul tips, I definitely walked away from the outing thinking about that specifically, like a nine-pitch walk to (Ramon) Urias in the third inning, him just fouling some stuff off,” said Stripling. “It was more of just my secondary stuff not being as big a weapon for me as normal where maybe they don't have to respect it as much as usual, because normally I'm just throwing the kitchen sink, anything in any count. But today with my breaking and stuff not as sharp as normal, they probably could sit on fastballs a little bit more. Lucky they weren't putting it in play, not really hitting it hard, but extending at-bats and making me work.”
Still, Stripling gave up only a Ryan Mountcastle homer in the first and a Urias RBI double in the fifth as he was grinded but not really threatened.
The Blue Jays offence, meanwhile, pressured the Orioles arms all game but had big innings blunted by three double plays and DJ Stewart erasing Vladimir Guerrero Jr. trying to score on a Cavan Biggio single the third.
Guerrero’s two-run double earlier in the inning opened up a 3-1 edge an inning after the tying run came home on Randal Grichuk’s double-play ball. Once the Orioles pulled with a run in the top of the fifth, Biggio extended the advantage in the bottom half with a two-run double.
More often than not, that should be enough to win but until the bullpen stabilizes, closing out victories likes these can’t be taken for granted. As much as the Blue Jays need depth late in games to bridge to and support Romano, they need a lot more of what Murphy and Mayza provided to sometimes keep leverage from arriving at all, too.
